


Everywhere but here

by piratecaptainraven



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Male Eivor (Assassin's Creed), Masturbation, Pining, Sad, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:21:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29094906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratecaptainraven/pseuds/piratecaptainraven
Summary: Some nights, the dreams focus on the memory of touch and that alone, on the memory of belonging, of having, of being held. He'd not questioned it, at the time, the exhilaration of it all, the feeling of it, every touch magnified, every breath shared, the impossible intimacy of it despite the brevity. He’d feasted on the sword’s edge of growing tension between them, on the beauty of its release. He’d taken it for granted, the depth of feeling, the way they matched like their blood was singing in tune.
Relationships: Eivor/Basim Ibn Ishaq
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	Everywhere but here

**Author's Note:**

> The working title for this was 'sad wank' but it ended up being much heavier on the sad than anticipated. Tread carefully, especially if having a bad day. This is set immediately post-game and following the events of Norway, and Eivor isn't dealing with it at all well. It's when I HC him starting to realise everything that's happened and everything that has been lost (including his relationship with Basim), and all the weight of past history. Spoilers abound.
> 
> Also: I may be fully pushing the boundaries of what the person in the Animus can do in terms of movements, but it's for a good cause. This one features m!Eivor. Past Loki/Odin implied.
> 
> General warnings: angst, tomfoolery, rambling, and zero dialogue.  
> Content warning: some of the angsty monologuing can be triggering if you're battling depression.
> 
> Title from Saeed Jones' 'Dirge', which also sets the tone for this. I'm also on tumblr under the same name.

In dreams, memories come, but they are not his, not Eivor’s. Memories of pain and betrayal, of endings and beginnings, the realms burning and swallowed by darkness, blood mingling like bodies. Memories of Loki’s mouth and the way he laughed, and his eyes, the way they burn. Eivor shouldn’t know about any of that, but he does, he does, in ways he didn’t understand back when he was the one with his lips pressed to Basim’s skin. It’s not been long enough to forget that, and the memories aren’t his, but they are.

Eivor tries not to dwell on the abyss consuming him, tries to find comfort in what used to be comforting: Sigurd at home and safe, Ravensthorpe still secure in the middle of chaos, Eivor’s people fed and well. But nothing will appease the emptiness, not now, not anymore. Before, he’d thought that he’d find his home on distant shores, that his heart would find calm at the end of a journey, but now he knows better. He found his home, tasted his home, then lost it before he could even understand what took place, like sea water escaping the feeble hold of drowning hands. 

Basim is gone, and with him the shreds of all of Eivor’s beliefs. Everything has been destroyed, the man he thought he was, the man he thought Basim to be, their roles in this world. Eivor has to laugh, at times, at the limited view he used to have of everything. He has to laugh to chase away the dread, the grief, the loss. He won’t ever be just him again, and the creeping knowledge that he never has been makes him feel tainted, wrong, like his body and his mind are now enemies, foreign, deadly, turned against him by forces outside his control, forces he was never even allowed to refuse.

The dreams come, and the grief wakes him, every time, and every time, he gasps for breath, suffocated by absence or by terror. There are no words to explain this, no words to shape the enormity of it. Hytham is the only one who still says Basim’s name in the settlement, and he asks, too often, questions that Eivor cannot answer. Every time he sees the grief in Hytham’s constantly-open expression, Eivor loses himself a little more, feels the branches of the tree grip him tighter by the throat. He’s taken to ignoring Hytham’s hut, ignoring Sigurd’s knowing gaze, ignoring those who see the heavy shadows under his eyes.

Some nights, the dreams focus on the memory of touch and that alone, on the memory of belonging, of having, of being held. He'd not questioned it, at the time, the exhilaration of it all, the feeling of it, every touch magnified, every breath shared, the impossible intimacy of it despite the brevity. He’d feasted on the sword’s edge of growing tension between them, on the beauty of its release. He’d taken it for granted, the depth of feeling, the way they matched like their blood was singing in tune. The extent of his hunger had distracted him, the way he’d been ravenous for every touch, for every flick of the tongue, for Basim’s hands in his hair, for being claimed and claiming in return. He’d never experienced desire like that before, the kind that burned, the kind where every moment was filled with longing, the kind where he didn’t care about embarrassing himself when he begged for more, screamed for more. He’d loved before, but never in a way that made him want to lose himself, never in a way that made him feel whole, never like this. And now, there is only emptiness, only the hollow echo of devastation. Every day, Eivor wakes and drowns. Every day, his hands ache with absence, with memory. Every day, his lips forget the touch of Basim’s fingers. Every day, he thinks of the hatred in Basim's eyes, of his body hanging from the Tree.

Fate doesn't tell him which dreams will come. He sleeps in fragments, wary of his mind, this dangerous foreigner looking to punish him. On this night, Eivor has only been sleeping for a short while when he wakes with the memory of Basim's mouth on him, their hands holding on to each other. It feels so real Eivor's heart is racing, sweat breaking over his skin despite the damp chill of the night air. He's gasping for breath, feeling like he's burning, like if he'd just reach out he'd be able to tangle his fingers in Basim's hair, he'd be able to drown in him instead of in the lack of him. For a moment, Eivor doesn’t recognise his surroundings, a surge of panic, but then there’s a flicker of firelight from outside and he sees Basim’s spare cloak in the corner of the hut, but it doesn’t calm him. He doesn’t know which feeling has greater hold over him in this moment, grief or desire. All he knows is that he feels, that he hasn’t been able to stop feeling, hasn’t been able to remember the act of unconstricted breathing.

His body feels separate from his mind, once again, yearning for touch in that open, wanton way that just asks without specification, but Eivor hasn’t sought it from anyone else, hasn’t allowed it from himself. He only has contact with his own skin when absolutely necessary, and it still feels like an invasion. His body may settle, but his mind only seeks comfort from the one person who could fully give it. Everything else is a trick, an illusion, and the sound that breaks itself from Eivor’s throat sounds more like a wounded wolf than a laugh.

He sits with his head in his hands, his hair an unbraided mess, trying to make his heart stop racing, trying not to think of the few times Basim was with him in this bed but his mind betrays him too, feeding him the memory of the way he writhed, the way he choked on Basim’s name, on pleas to be taken apart and put back together. Basim had delivered, of course. Eivor should’ve suspected then, should’ve known that it wasn’t possible for two former strangers to understand each other’s intricacies like that, but the beauty of it was like a drunken haze and he’d been warm and safe and home, so there was no need to question, no need to doubt. After the night at the campfire, they kept growing closer, almost unavoidably, touches that looked like accidents, shared laughter, whispered conversations in the darkness, silences rich with meaning.

When Basim kissed him, something inarticulable surged inside Eivor, an ecstasy of belonging, of familiarity, of ‘finally’. The end of a long and desolate journey, the end of a search that had burned inside him without him being aware of its extent or its aim. When he kissed Basim, something broke, the rope holding his heart together unravelling like memory. It all seems so fated now, a fate written by cruel gods. Cruel gods like the one threaded all over Eivor, the one under his skin, hiding in the shadows of his mind, whispering hungrily, watching, always watching.

Eivor feels a spark of vindictive pleasure at the thought of how it must have felt for Odin to watch Eivor on his knees for Basim, worshipping with everything in him, everything that used to be his. It was so effortless, the way they fit together, like sea and sand, like snow and mountains, like the stain of blood on sharp blades. It was so easy, falling. It was so easy to crumble. 

He can’t stop thinking about it, even as the emptiness suffocates him with its weight. He can’t stop thinking about their bodies drenched in firelight, lips raw, skin reddened, the mark of Basim’s hands on his hips. He thinks about how it felt, like the world stopped, like nothing else mattered but the lack of space between their bodies. He thinks about not being able to stop touching Basim, after, always so unwilling to give him up, to break the spell. 

The grief has its fingers around his throat again but his body won’t pay attention to it. It wants, and it wants, and it wants, and Eivor can’t ever feel whole again but he must allow himself his own touch despite its pathetic insignificance. He tries to fool himself in the dark, tries to pretend his hand is someone else’s, brushing his hair back with an almost cruel grip, lingering over his pulse, resting between his collarbones, flicking over his chest, blunt nails biting. He presses his palm flat to his stomach, lets it bear down, lets his hips ask for more. This hunger could burn him like the pain inside him, and he wishes he would, he wishes it would take everything from him, but it doesn’t, it won’t. 

His mind continues betraying him, sending him fragments of memories that do nothing to soothe the screaming emptiness in him, but he lets himself drown in them, lets them take over, lets his hand find purchase. He almost falls off the bed at contact after so long, his back arching in a way he knows will linger later, but it doesn’t matter, none of it matters. Another sound tears itself free from his throat and he doesn’t know if it’s pain or pleasure still, his grip too harsh, too dry, until he spreads his own wetness over himself, all the desperation made tangible, sticking to him with the stain of memory.

It’s not enough. It can’t be enough. It should be familiar, the grip of his hand, but it feels as wrong as everything else does. He’s again overwhelmed by how trapped he feels in his own skin, and he tries to focus on the want, tries to focus on the memories, but they flee from him the moment he wishes to capture them. He uses his free hand to trail over his lips, sucks on his fingers with his eyes closed but they taste of him and no one else and he’s not enough. He could never be enough.

He grabs at his hair again but doesn’t find the usual spark of feeling, the way it felt when his lovers would do it for him, when Basim would, treating him like his hair was threaded with silver, like there was no better treasure. None of it feels right, because he’s alone, because he’s a stranger to himself. There is no comfort to be found but his body needs it and frustration howls inside him, his hips seeking friction, seeking another body.

Eivor turns halfway on his stomach just to feel something that’s not himself, grabbing at the bed and grinding, entirely too aware of what he must look like, ridiculous and fragile, seeking something he can’t get. He feels so alone, so lost, so wrong, and every breath hurts, and he sobs, pleasure fully out of reach as the grief crashes over him, pulls him under its weight, sinks him. He wants to scream, wants to tear everything to pieces, all memories of touch fading, all the good disappearing. He buries his face in his arm, bites down, tears hot on his skin, the bed shaking with his futile movement. He’s sobbing and doesn’t care if anyone hears him, whispering incoherently into the skin he’s reddened with his teeth, frantic useless little prayers like ‘please come back to me, please don’t leave me’ and he hates himself for each sound, hates himself for being trapped here, trapped in his own body, his mind barely his.  


He doesn’t realise when his movements stop because he’s crying, his focus on trying to breathe through the grief. His body hasn’t given up yet but everything else in him has, and it’s all a mess, all of him, all of this. He’s trapped and none of it matters, because he can’t escape his fate, he was never going to be able to escape.

He doesn’t know how long he stays like that, crying into his arm like a child. He’s lost too much and none of his dreams seem worth it anymore now that he’s buried too many friends, now that he’s alone with this feeling, with this absence. He knows he should be grateful for what he still has, but none of it seems like a victory anymore. All that’s left is devastation, and the endless war between Odin and Loki, all that love and betrayal and shared blood and Eivor in the middle of the storm, unable to do anything but watch, unable to do anything but bear it.

When his hand moves, he doesn’t think anything of it. It feels like his own movement, at first, but when his fingers dig into his skin he has the eerie realisation that he never thought the gesture, he never acted on it. For a moment, there’s panic again, the horror of not being in control, the fear that Odin will fully take over and leave none of Eivor’s humanity behind. There’s also the thought that he’s somehow lost all his sanity, that he’s the one doing this and trying to convince himself that he’s not, but the movement continues, his own fingers drawing lines across his skin, gentle and comforting in a way he can’t accept from himself. He watches his hand and tries to understand, but his body doesn’t care. It feels right, for the first time in moons, a touch that is welcome. 

It’s not how he touches himself, but it’s almost as familiar, and his heart is racing, and he laughs, an unhinged sound, echoing in the shadows around him.He must be in the grips of a fever dream, must’ve had some of Valka’s tea, must’ve accidentally had the wrong kind of mushroom again. It’s not possible. There’s no room for anyone else in his mind, already too crowded a space, but his body doesn’t question any of it, accepting the touch with all the enormity of its starvation.

He moves his hand too, just to prove that he can, but there is a spark there, bursting into a flame, his skin overheated and begging for comfort, begging for release. Eivor can breathe, but then he can’t, his hand finding himself again, and each touch feels like two, the grip of his fingers fast and tight, and he’s panting, still too loud, the bed shaking. He alternates his strokes with grinding down on the bed again, better this time, his hips finding lost rhythm. He feels watched, like he’s showing off, and makes a spectacle of desperation, his voice shaking when he says the name he’s not spoken out loud because he thought it would shatter him even more. He says ‘Basim’ and ‘please’ and ‘let me’, and none of this makes sense, and he can’t tell when his movements are his and when they’re not, but it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, because he’s so close and all he wants is to fall into it, to lose himself in it, to have a few moments of stillness.

The memories come back in a rush and his body feels alive, greedy, the shadows banished to the corners, at least for now. Eivor loses his pace before finding release, his wrist twinging painfully, but then his hand’s grip tightens again, unbidden, fingers pressing into heat, strokes turning harsh and deliberate, and all he can do is let himself go, his voice breaking, body tensing, and then he says it again, ‘please, Basim’, and falls. It’s silent after all the noise, his body shaking like a leaf, voice and breath gone, fingers wet, hair all over his face. Everything is quiet, and it almost feels like peace.

Eivor doesn’t move for a long time, hiding from the emptiness, from the grief. He clings to this moment, the sweat on him, the way it feels like he might fall asleep without nightmares to plague him. If he imagines it hard enough he can almost feel the weight of someone else behind him, anchoring him, keeping him safe from the sorrow. It’s an illusion, of course, a futile attempt to keep himself from getting dragged back under the wave, but it helps. For now, it helps. 

Exhaustion is hard to resist, but Eivor doesn’t fight it, for once. When he wakes, he will bathe, perhaps eat something, braid his hair. The others shouldn’t see him like this anymore. He feels a flicker of strength, a glimpse of light, this twitch in his hand that has nothing to do with him. It’s not salvation, but it’s something. It’s everything.


End file.
